Fathers and Sons

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Fathers and Sons
Studio album by Muddy Waters

Publication
(s)

1969

Label (s) Chess Records

Format (s)

Double LP, CD

Genre (s)

blues

Title (number)

16

running time

65:18 (CD)

occupation see the Contributors section

production

Norman Dayron

Studio (s)

Ter-Mar Studios, Chicago

chronology
After the Rain (1969) Fathers and Sons Sail On (1969)

Fathers and Sons is a double album by blues musician Muddy Waters , which was released in 1969 on the Chicago label Chess Records . The cover shows based on Michelangelo's ceiling paintings Creazione di Adamo in the Sistine Chapel one older and one younger black white man whose fingers are short before touching. The aim was to visualize what the concept of this record was, namely the musical coming together of older Afro-American blues men with younger white rock musicians, all of whom had close ties to the blues and to whom the older ones passed on their musical legacy.

Album history

According to reports, the idea for Fathers and Sons came about during nightly shop chats between Marshall Chess, the son of label co-founder Leonard Chess , and University of Chicago professor Norman Dayron, who was also responsible for the production of the album. In addition to musical considerations, the hope that this concept would help sell more records also played a role. After all, it was the time when a white audience began to be increasingly interested in the blues , opening up a new market for this genre , the potential of which was overestimated at Chess in this case.

A studio and a live album were planned from the start. And so, at the end of April 1969, the "fathers" and "sons" first met for three days in the studio, only one day after these sessions were over at an event in Chicago's newly renovated Auditorium Theater called the Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree in front of around 2800 to play the additional live material to enthusiastic listeners. The "fathers" in this case were Muddy Waters (born 1913) and his long-time pianist Otis Spann (1930–1970); the group of "sons" consisted of Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield (1943–1981), his former bandleader Paul Butterfield (harmonica; 1942–1987) and Stax house bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn (1941–2012). The rhythm section was completed by drummer Sam Lay , who in addition to the Butterfield Blues Band had also swung the drumsticks for Howlin 'Wolf, among others . Rhythm guitarist Paul Asbell was also involved in three studio titles and harp player Jeff Carp in the opener All Aboard , and Phil Upchurch took the place of Donald Dunn on bass on this song . Another musician was drummer Buddy Miles , for whom Sam Lay left his place before the band started a rerun of Got My Mojo Working at their live gig, which was greeted with enthusiastic applause .

Musically, Fathers and Sons offered nothing new in that both the studio sessions and the live recordings included all song titles that Muddy Waters had already recorded in the course of his career. In a mix of slow blues and up-tempo numbers , the studio album presents standards such as Walkin 'Thru The Park , Willie Dixon's I'm Ready or Eddie Boyd's Twenty-Four Hours, and the live album includes the Waters classic Baby Please Don't Go and Honey Bee before the band starts a furious finale with the Preston Foster composition Got My Mojo Working . This powerfully driving title in particular seemed to have attracted the predominantly white audience, many of whom attended their first blues concert. As a result, the song appeared twice as Got My Mojo Working, Part One and Got My Mojo Working, Part Two on the live LP.

One of the aims of the recordings was to re-record Muddy's classic under different recording conditions. It was not for nothing that Chess pointed out on the album cover that the then cutting-edge Concept 12 stereo process had been used for the recordings . In addition, the new recordings should no longer be subject to the time restrictions of the classic single format. This approach was implemented most consistently with Long Distance Call , which brought it to a playing time of 6 minutes and 37 seconds, which was quite unusual for the time.

Almost twenty years after Muddy Waters' death, Fathers and Sons received a WC Handy Blues Award from the Blues Foundation in 2002 in the Historical Blues Album of the Year category.

Track list

LP 1 ( Studio Recordings )
  1. All Aboard ( McKinley Morganfield ) - 2:49
  2. Mean Disposition (McKinley Morganfield) - 5:40
  3. Blow Wind Blow (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:40
  4. Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:03
  5. Walkin 'Thru the Park (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:19
  6. Forty Days and Forty Nights (Bernie Roth) - 3:05
  7. Standin 'Round Cryin' (McKinley Morganfield) - 4:02
  8. I'm Ready ( Willie Dixon ) - 3:37
  9. Twenty Four Hours ( Eddie Boyd ) - 4:47
  10. Sugar Sweet (McKinley Morganfield) - 2:16
LP 2 ( Recorded Live at Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree )
  1. Long Distance Call (McKinley Morganfield) - 6:37
  2. Baby Please Don't Go (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:03
  3. Honey Bee (McKinley Morganfield) - 3:56
  4. The Same Thing (Willie Dixon) - 6:04
  5. Got My Mojo Working , Part One (Preston Foster) - 3:24
  6. Got My Mojo Working , Part Two (Preston Foster) - 5:10

Contributors

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linernotes by Cary Baker on the CD edition from 1989
  2. ↑ Robert Gordon in his Muddy Waters biography Can't Be Satisfied : "In their excitement, Chess overestimated the market and shipped many more records than they would sell."
  3. ^ Linernotes by Cary Baker

literature

  • "Milestones in Blues History (Episode 5): Muddy Waters - Fathers and Sons"; bluesnews 52 (January – March 2008) ISSN  0948-5643
  • CD liner notes by Cary Baker (1989)
  • Robert Gordon: Can't Be Satisfied - The Life and Times of Muddy Waters (London, 2003) ISBN 0-7126-3999-3 ; Title of the German edition: Muddy Waters - Godfather of Electric Blues (Höfen, 2004)

Web links